Quality One Pellets from home depot... BIG Problems.. BIG no no

[gitmo234]

There's a review on here about Quality One pellets. In that thread one person recommends them and then myself and a few others chime in and bash them. Well, I had my Harman PF-100 installed around September of last year and I regularly maintained it. I bought 3/4 ton of Quality One without checking reviews. After two bags I stopped burning them and only recently decided to burn them up. Thankfully it was after a full cleaning I did on my furnace. So, here's what Quality One pellets did to my furnace...about twenty eight bags...


Furnace died... Auger box was FILLED with fines... The one I had vacuumed out and 28 bags ago and the same one you're supposed to check semi annually. FILLED. Furnace wouldnt feed.

Vacuum sensor in hopper... 100% clogged. Again...caused feed problems.

ESP sensor had a VISIBLE and clearly NOTICEABLE thick layer of junk. Very thick.

Clinkers... huge ones. I had one deposit that was massive and I swear was the size of a quarter. For a second I thought a weld had busted off.

The glass on my furnace was 100% black and not see through.



So, that's my experience with 28 bags of Quality One. I knew they were problematic when I almost had to wear a mask to poor them into the hopper. Too much dust. Now I'm running Hamers Hot Ones exclusively. I'll post the difference sometime.

 

[gitmo234]

I also should post that with Quality on, and the temp at the occasional 19 degrees overnight, my furnace went full blast to keep the house at 68, ran 24/7. With my later temp gun, I measured the hottest register at 105 coming out of the register.

With Hamers the hottest I seem to get is 140 degrees. Big difference.

 

[newf lover]

There's always an ongoing argument with some people here about whether it's worth it to spend more $$ for a high quality pellet. Not that you can't get a bad batch of a usually high quality pellet everyone raves about, but I think your chances are better than if you buy MOST big box store brands. Bad pellets can do bad things, and at least for me, it's not worth it to take a chance on cheap. Just my opinion, many do not agree. If we ever get winter here, maybe you can use the rest for traction on your driveway.

 

[bcb1]

Good point. Pellets have a fairly wide variance from brand to brand, and even the same brand can vary. You might have a really good batch this year and not as good next year. Not that they won't burn okay, but you'll notice more ash, or more clinkers, or whatever.

You know, the thing that really surprises me is that Lowes and HD around here have the highest prices on pellets. I'm used to seeing them undercut the local Mom and Pop electrical supply dealers, plumbing houses, hardware stores, etc - but for pellets it's the opposite. The local dealers are cheaper than the big box stores. It really works out for me; my local JD dealer has Hamers for $240/ton. Good pellets at a cheap price, at least for our area.

 

[gitmo234]

Craziness. Around here Lowes and Home depot are where it's at. From what I've gathered they dont really control what they get, they just order X number of tons and what they get is what they get. Normally it seems to be stove chow.

I live in southeast PA about 4 miles from the delaware border (tax free), so I drive to DE and home depot is only a few miles over the state line. At home depot I use my military discount (10%) and get a ton of pellets for about $180.

The local places are all $240 or higher. Here's what I've found:

Hamers Hot ones - $285 a ton - DE
Great American - $250 a ton - MD (I also live about 2 miles from the MD line)
Lignetics - $239 a ton - PA
Stove Chow - $180 a ton - DE (Home Depot, with discount figured in)
Cheat River - $239 a ton - DE (Lowes, discount not figured in)
Hamers - $275 a ton - MD

I think part of the reason is pellets arent all that common here yet, so not a huge demand. I know most people burn wood.